zBlog Post #2 revised

Cuisines With The Tasty Sause In Tin Drum

A sauce that is combined by a lot of spices, mostly famous for those types in Indian, Thai and Japanese cuisines, usually eaten with meat and rice.
Red, yellow, white, green, the colors of the sauce shows the difference of the ingredients and how hot the sauce is. The common kinds of the sauce contains Turmeric powder, Sichuan pepper, star anise, pepper, cinnamon, clove, coriander seeds and other hot spices. In the cooking area, the hot sweet spice and the special tempting aroma of this sauce are able to magically cover the fishy stink or raw meat smell. For the nutritional value, while expediting the exudation of the saliva and the gastric juice, it can increase gastrointestinal peristalsis, raise appetite and promote blood circulation.

Promoted firstly through Southern and Southeastern Asia till 17th century and widely spread by the European colonists, CURRY had became a popular, various, useful and delicious sauce all over the Europe and Asia.

Tin Drum

Tin Drum is a nice restaurant settled in Tech Square which is pretty well-known for its Asian curry dishes. So I went there with my friends twice this week during dinner time to find out how they were doing for the curry cuisines. There are lot of types of curry, but due to the limited kinds Tin Drum serves, I will just talk about some of them: Tikka Masala(Indian curry) , Masaman Curry and Thai Green Karee(Thai curry), and Japanese Katsu(Japanese curry).

Indian Curry

Indian Curry is the originator of all kinds of curry. Traditional Indian curry contains cloves, fennel son, coriander seed, mustard son, turmeric powder and chili. Due to the strong taste of the spices used in making curry powder, there is always coconut syrup added during the cooking process to make the taste rather thicker than heavy.

In addition, since England originally took the cooking techniques from India, the curry over there in fact has very similar flavor as traditional Indian curry.

Tikka Masala

$6.95

Steamed chicken; creamy Indian curry; tomato; cilantro and steamed rice.
The Indian curry really does stimulate your taste buds. But it is not always a good thing. In addition to the strong, hot flavors of the red curry, there is a weird sweet-salty mouth feel in this sauce which is not pleasant to eat. The chicken is delicate but totally filtered with the weird taste that makes it hard to be pleased with it. It is hard to tell what is in this sauce, there is tomatoes create the sour and sweetness, cilantro makes the tempting aroma and something unknown in the curry sauce that makes it so special and odd.

If you are not too used to all kinds of curry, this is not a good choice to experience the magic of the spices.

Stars: ☆☆


Thai Curry
In a result of the additional spices like lemongrass, fish sauce and bay leaves added in the formula, Thai curry are in a class of their own. There are many kinds of curry are widely used in Thai recipes. The red Thai curry is the favorite type of curry in Thailand. Since the red curry sauce is added, it appears supplementary red. The green Thai curry contains extra coriander and lime skin which makes them appear the fresh green color is usually cooked with sea food to reduce the raw fishy taste and smell of the cuisine. But it is so spicy that it makes people tear up sometimes.

Thai Green Karee

$6.95

Steamed chicken; curry, peppercorn, bamboo, green bean and steamed rice.
Covered with the yellowish white curry top, under which is the light green of the vegetables, white steamed chicken and rice, Thai Green Karee is a healthy Thai cuisine with a refreshing look and smell. As stirring and mixing everything in the plate, the smell of curry dances and lingers. Taking a spoon-full from the plate, suddenly, the plainness in mouth disappears. The steamed chicken is very tender and soft as the time of cooking is well controlled. Everything in the plate is tasty and fragrant as the flavor of the curry sauce is seeped into it.
However, the green curry sauce is not as hot as it should be; also, it is a little too greasy for people to eat it all.

Stars: ☆☆

Masaman Curry

$7.45

Steamed chicken; carrot; potato; avocado; cashew; onion and steamed rice.

An amazing fragrant and sweet feeling is produced while chewing the crispy cashew and soft rice together with the red Thai curry soup.(I'd rather say it's a curry soup not sauce because it is rather the juicy and thin type.) The chicken is delicate and full of the tender flavor of the spices: sweet, hot and a little bit sour. The only one little piece of avocado is definitely the best part of this cuisine: creates a standing-out bright green in the red soup while having a great tender and melting taste with the creamy flavor in the curry soup.

This cuisine has the highest price, but it absolutely worths it as it will never get your tone tired of tasting its fantastic flavor.

Stars: ☆☆☆☆ The Awesome Masaman Curry

Japanese Curry

Curry was not spread to Japan till the time of Meiji from Europe. However, the original heavy spicy types changed dramatically to more exquisite, delicate, lighter and sweeter (due to the additional concentrated pulp) ones in a very short time period. Though Japanese does not contain as much spice as the Indian types which makes it not as various, it is more convenient to use and can actually be directly poured on rice and noodles as a tempting delicious top.(Japanese curry is also called European style curry since French roux is added as a thickening material. Moreover, Taiwan curry has the similar quality as Japanese curry which is usually yellow and has a smell of cumin.

Japanese Katsu

$6.95

Panko breaded chicken; yellow curry; carrot; potato; onion; jalapeno and steamed rice.

Traditional Japanese yellow curry dish with way too much onion and way too little potato. The onion is sour, sweet but too droopy and has such a great amount that produces a strong but bad taste to the dish, tough the potatoes are perfectly cooked and flavored with a soft texture. The good part of the chicken is that surface of it is crispy and spicy; however, the inside is just plain and dry. Mixing the rice with the top, yellow, dry and dull tastes are all you will get.

Stars: ☆


Overall:

The atmosphere in Tin Drum was fine as the warm color combination created a pleasant feeling as we seated and ate. The wooden tables and chairs are lovely and make the whole restaurant more home-like. However, we had to wait in a line to order our food before the front desk which was not very fun, the line was so long and made the space between each person so small and it felt so crowded. Also, the table sets were not very logical and convenient since there were just 3 or 4 sets of 4-people table while there were a lot of costumers were colleges buddies of three or four, so that they had to combine the table every time costumers like that came in. Moreover, there were not enough waiters so that costumers sometimes had to move the tables themselves.
Consequently, Tin Drum is a fine Asian restaurant which serves okay curry cuisines.

Tin Drum: ★★